The Electra Forums

I am moved. I rarely see such respect and passion towards this specific guitar subject. I feel extremely luck to be here, but also embarrased. While I am a fanatic of Japanese guitars and I have found it very hard to find like-minded people in the real world, It is very foolish of me to be so impertinent and absent-minded in my manner of requesting help and information in this community forum.

I´ll think twice about my posts, and I'll make sure I digest the advice you people provide before inquiring further. I'll be looking into the wiring and polishing aspects of my repair job with the MONARK. On my next post I'll have progress news, and pictures.

X199Player, thanks for your patience and lenghts you go to clarify things for me. I just came into the forum and you have been incredibly helpful already. Let me know how much for the bridge MMK45, hopefully I can afford it so I can send you a Paypal payment soon. By any chance, do you have a Bendmaster tremolo arm?

Sorry if my comments came across as sharp. I appreciate your interest and appreciation of this little corner of the world, and I do appreciate your courtesy and patience. Besides, all the good info in the world still may not be clear, so don't hesitate to ask for clarification :)

I don't think I have a spare arm but I'll look around. it's a pretty standard size and thread, a 6mm bolt with 1.00 pitch thread. You should be able to find an aftermarket trem that fits, but I agree, it would be nice to have an original.

In fact this one looks almost perfect:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_ta ... _Arms.html

Oh, and you had also asked:

>BTW, our guitars are a bit disimilar. they seem to have aged quite differently, like wines I guess.

Yours seems to have escaped the almost inevitable damage the lower point. Mine didn't, it's broken off... though on hte bright side, it'll come in handy if I'm ever attacked by vampires while onstage and need a sharpened stake ;)


>you guitar has plenty of dings and dents too, what is your thinking in regards to restoring the body finish?

I go around about that. At one time I would have tried to fix all the dents and dings. It's funny, because in order to learn guitar finishing you wind up spending a lot of time on the guitar refinishing forums, and one constant topic there is how to weather guitars to make them looks like vintage relics. All this time trying to repair them and here we have people trying to create the illusion of wear and damage!

Lately I've been inclined to leave them alone for the most part, except to repair fucntional problems. With these white guitars they fade to a lovely yellow that's much trickier to color match than other colors like red or metalflake. I guess my attitude is that if I can get a close match I'll repair nicks and dents at least enough to make them less visible onstage.

On that note, you should know that these guitars were originally painted with Toyota auto paint (all guitars are painted with auto paint- nitro laquer in the old days and polyurethane enamel in the modern day- the old fender colors are all various auto shades, Ford, cadillac, etc.) So you can go to your local parts store and get Toyota touchup paint that (not counting fading) will match perfectly. For instance, Duplicolor Universal Flat Black is a perfect match for the weird satin black used on the neck of Monarks and Phoenixes and such. So that's an easy fix if you have headstock dings. It's possible that you'll find a faded white that's close enough. My problem is usually getting in over my head and causing a bigger problem than I solve- if you can keep your head and limit the repair to only the area that was damaged, you'll be OK.


>Also, I notice your guitar doesn't have any inscriptions in the neck pickup cavity, unlike mine. does that number, 98-1.750, tell you anything?

I wish it did. No doubt numbers like this had something to do with lot and production numbers, but today that info is lost. I keep hoping that enough people will post pictures of details like this as you did so we can begin to make sense of it.

ONe odd thing about my Monark is the lack of a serial number. I'm disinclined to think this means anything special like a prototype, but it does make you wonder. My red Monark does have a serial number though. Does yours have one? If so, the first three digits will tell us the production date.

I am with you 100% about the emotional bond of the Monark, and btw, you got a great deal. WHile these guitars have yet to fetch any high value on the market compared to popular brands, a Monark is worth more than you paid, and it is certainly comparable in quality to a guitar costing three to five times as much.


Your mystery Westone is really amazing! I am inclined to say it may be a very early Matsumoku, as Westone was a name they came up with in the first place. The style is definitely all 60's, and it's exciting to me because the details could help identify other early guitars MAtsumoku might have contributed to.

hey guys, Paul,

I'm sorry I vanished for a little while. I had the chance to take a trip through the country side, it turned out to be a heck of a great experience. I spent about two weeks traveling and that's why I haven't had the chance to finish and have news for you about the guitars.
I'll spice things up a bit, have a look for yourselves.







thanks for your patience...